


Fever

by gummmyshark



Category: FFC-Acrush (Band), Fanxy Red (Band), QCYN2, THE9 (Band), youth with you 2, 偶像练习生 | Idol Producer (TV), 青春有你2
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Angst, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Enemies to Lovers, F/F, Female Friendship, Friendship, Higher Education, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-14
Updated: 2020-06-14
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:53:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24707896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gummmyshark/pseuds/gummmyshark
Summary: A (college AU) tale of drama, pettiness, best friends, and worst enemies.
Relationships: Kong Xue'er/Liu Yuxin, Lin Fan/Liu Lingzi (Idol Producer), Liu Lingzi/Xu Jiaqi, Liu Yuxin/Lu Keran
Comments: 5
Kudos: 21
Collections: x0





	Fever

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by this prompt submitted to the Cloud9 Ficfest (which this fic is *not* a part of):
> 
> "enemies to friends to lovers au. lingzi has never liked yuxin and her group of friends because yuxin broke her best friend's heart. she hates them with a passion and plans to get back at them until her plan backfires and she's stuck with their friend, lin fan. the whole night in a room together may or may not have caused lingzi to go crazy, because she keeps thinking lin fan's not bad and maybe... just maybe.... just a tiny bit... cute."

_**MIRRORS AND FEVERS** _

_I was cold in a dream  
somewhere close to the surface  
Between the ice and the stream  
there is three inches of air  
So I swam towards the light  
I let my breath get there first  
When I opened my eyes  
I saw myself in the mirror _

(Bright Eyes)

__________________________

Central Arts was the kind of place where people expected you to know who you were. Perhaps it came with being a small, private arts college in the middle of lofty Beijing, where everyone moved to a frenetic, self-assured rhythm.

To put it bluntly, people at Central Arts acted like they were hot shit. If you didn’t know who you were- your _brand-_ you sort of made it up along the way.

Liu Lingzi was one of those who knew who she was. She was shrewd- not much missed her discerning eye.

It made her an expert at spotting shortcomings in a design project. It gave her an edge when it came to tweaking the routines her team choreographed in dance classes- tweaks that could elevate a performance from outstanding to perfect. Even if she procrastinated on a project (which she did, nine times out of ten), a few hours of hyper-focus up until the moment before the deadline was aways _just_ enough to get the marks she needed. It was a useful quality to have.

Did this quality of hers make her sometimes a little more critical of herself? Of others?

Perhaps. But it had served her well in many ways.

Getting her to meet Kiki, one of her closest friends at Central Arts, for instance. 

At last year’s moon festival, all the college’s clubs and societies had taken over a corner of the covered courtyard that they’d then decorated with handmade paper lanterns, each following a different theme. Lingzi was the secretary of the Modern Dance Club and Kiki was in the Classical Ballet Society.

The two clubs had set up their areas side-by-side. Lingzi had wandered through the Classical Ballet area, getting a closer look at their lanterns. She’d absentmindedly pressed down on a crooked fold in the delicate pleats of the accordion folds of a lantern, ironing it straight as she stopped to look at it. It had caught her attention initially, not because of that slight imperfection, but because of the words painted on it. _Fox and Dog are Friends._ She recognized the proverb right away and spent a moment admiring the characters, narrow and delicate cursive, before reaching out to address the small deficiency like it was second nature. That was what had prompted a reaction from Kiki.

“Um, what are you doing to _my_ -” an indignant voice piped up from behind Lingzi, and Lingzi turned her head to glance over her shoulder. The girl that had approached her had stopped mid-sentence as soon as Lingzi’s eyes had met hers. She had short hair that framed a strikingly pretty face- sharp features and piercing eyes. Her expression seemed to shift from mild annoyance to mischief, her thin lips edging up into a smirk. 

“My apologies,” Lingzi had offered sweetly, as she realized she was technically tampering with someone else’s work. Lingzi delicately withdrew the offending hand, even though the other girl’s expression seemed to convey that Lingzi had already been forgiven, somehow. 

When they ended up in Visual Merchandising together that winter semester, sitting together every class came naturally. The progression to working on assignments together, then going shopping and out to eat hot pot after classes flowed equally naturally. Their styles were similar, they collaborated easily, and they seemed to both operate on the (somewhat immodest) assumption that it was natural for girls that looked like them to stick together.

Kiki was one of just two people at Central Arts that Lingzi could rest assured would never take her shrewd comments personally. The other was Xue’er. 

If she had to give Xue’er a brand, it would be _mysterious_.

Lingzi and Xue’er had been roommates since first year. Having lived together for three years, they’d learned how to read each other’s minds and each had gained the ability to interpret the little eccentricities of the other’s behaviour.

Whenever Lingzi saw Xue’er gazing out the window in class, or at the wall opposite her bed (usually directly into the eyes of the Totoro in the poster hung above Xue’er’s desk), lips parting occasionally to form pieces of words; Lingzi knew she was playing out scenarios in her mind, overthinking and rehearsing every possible outcome, practicing what she would say in each one.

Lingzi figured this was par for the course for someone like Xue’er who had a tendency to get lost in her own thoughts, and to be on the more socially anxious side. So last weekend when she caught the Xue’er doing exactly this- sitting on the top level of the bunk they shared, arms folded, back against the wall, talking to that _damn Totoro-_ Lingzi knew to climb up to sit beside her and give her a look that said: _What the hell is wrong with you?_

In the past, there had been times when she would snap out of it embarrassedly, chuckling and waving her off before mumbling about homework or something she had been just about to get started on. This meant: _I’ll be ok._

Other times, she’d force out a smile before an unsuccessful attempt to blink tears from her eyes. This was one of those times.

Dewy, little diamonds rolled down her flushed cheeks and caused her long, dark eyelashes to tangle together, forming little triangles. An urge to wipe them away with her own fingertips that Lingzi pushed out of her mind as quickly as it arose.

Lingzi’s tone was emotionless: “Who do I have to kill?” 

She could have been asking what Xue’er felt like ordering for dinner.

Xue’er's eyes popped open and she let out a surprised laugh that morphed into a sob halfway through. She self-consciously covered her face with her hands while Lingzi wondered how she could be so precious and so goofy at the same time.

“Xue’er….” Lingzi cooed, leaning in closer to her. Xue’er was unresponsive for a few moments before she held out her phone. It was open to her message chain with her on-again, off-again girlfriend Yuxin. The last message was from the other girl.

_i’m really sorry it ended up like this. i’ll always be here for u tho. even as a friend, u mean the world to me--_

Lingzi impatiently put the phone down, shoving the display into the sheets so it was as far out of her sight as possible. She didn’t need to finish reading the carefully worded (as always) wall of text from Yuxin to know she’d dumped Xue’er for the third time since the school year started. Lingzi was more than a bit irritated.

“Xue’er.”

“I know, ok? I feel so stupid and-”

Lingzi didn’t allow her to finish her sentence. “You are _not_. Block her number.”

“But,” her voice rose into a chirp as she hiccuped out a sob, “maybe we _are_ better off as friends. She has a point,” she spoke fast, as if getting the words out as quickly as possible would be enough to stop herself from hearing what she knew Lingzi would say.

Lingzi pressed her lips together and exhaled softly. She wanted to shake the other girl by the shoulders: _you know she just wants to keep you as an option. Like she always does. And you let her_. 

Instead of saying anything, Lingzi tucked a stray lock of wavy brown hair behind her best friend’s ears from where it dangled in front of her eyes.

“It just feels like,” Xue’er started in a hushed voice, looking down at her hands she fiddled with anxiously. “I’m not... good enough?” She cringed at her own words and looked away from Lingzi, flustered.

After taking a few moments to collect herself, she told Lingzi the speech Yuxin had given her about why ‘a relationship wasn’t what either of them needed right now’. Just as soon as they had met up to work on their projects together like they’d planned, no less. 

Seeing her friend’s emotions toyed with this way made Lingzi’s blood boil. Yuxin would go from affectionate and caring to closed off and distant within the space of a week. She had provided a different excuse every time. First it was that she needed more time for studying so she could bring her GPA back up. Then it was that Xue’er demanded too much ‘emotional labour’ from her, she needed space. Now this. What Lingzi could only see as the most vaguely worded excuse yet.

In Lingzi’s eyes, Yuxin took advantage of Xue’er’s fragile mental state to try to keep her just close enough so that it wasn’t too difficult to draw her back in when it was convenient for her.

 _Scum._

__________________________

Fast forward to just a few days later and Xue’er was the newest member of Lingzi’s Visual Merchandising section.

This ended up being a minor disaster for a few different, but related, reasons:

1) she’d had to drop a class three weeks into the semester;

2) this was the only class that both gave her the credits she needed _and_ had an open spot, and;

3) Yuxin happened to be in this class.

Xue’er had only given Lingzi a heads up early that same morning in the form of a text asking for her notes while Lingzi was at the gym. 

When Lingzi entered Professor Zhang’s eight a.m. Visual Merchandising class- a small group in an ordinary classroom rather than a lecture theatre- there was a bowl of folded yellow slips of paper on the teacher’s desk with a sticky note instructing everyone to take one as they entered. Lingzi obliged and unfolded it as she made her way to her usual spot, the middle row of seats right against the window that she could stare out of whenever she reached the limit for how much of her time she was willing to give to the tiring world around her.

Her slip of paper read, in bold, sharpie letters: _director._

By the time she settled down and Professor Zhang had gotten up, presumably to start lecturing, Xue’er was traipsing in sleepily; long, wavy brown hair pulled back messily into a high ponytail, Michael Kohrs bag slung over her shoulder.

Lingzi tried to catch her attention by waving her over, but it was too late. She could tell that Xue’er had already made eye-contact with _her._

Xue’er’s eyes dropped to the floor. 

She felt a wave of guilt flooding over her as she realised she hadn’t mentioned that her now-ex happened to be taking Visual Merchandising this semester as well.

In her defense, she was far too much inside of her own head when she was at the gym, and it wasn’t like Xue’er had given her a heads up before she signed herself up for the class.

“Xue’er!” Lingzi hissed in her direction before she could trudge into any old seat. Xue’er met Lingzi’s eyes and took the empty seat behind Lingzi and Kiki.

“You could’ve told me...” Xue’er was mumbling into her bag as she rummaged through for her drawing tablet, taking the seat behind Lingzi. She’d unfolded the slip of paper she took from the professor’s desk at the start of the lecture and discarded it at the corner of her desk. It read: _photographer._

“Told you what?” Lingzi asked, looking over her shoulder and pouting apologetically, even though she knew what.

Perhaps Lingzi could have mentioned her classmates to Xue’er. Maybe during one of their late night drama binging sessions back at the dorm in which they had made a ritual out of turning the TV on, then proceeding to talking through most of the show, mostly to gossip and vent about what happened during their week. The fact that she had never brought this class up was a testament to the fact that, most times, Lingzi was eager to erase the memory of every Visual Merchandising class from her mind.

Yuxin’s presence in her class was a big reason for this. The disdain she held for Yuxin was matched only by the disdain with which she regarded Yuxin's friends, Keran and Lin Fan.

Yuxin and Keran seemed to spend every single class smirking and chuckling together in shared smug condescension, while Lin Fan- _Lin Fan_ \- the girl did not know how to shut up. Lingzi hadn’t gone one class without having to hear Lin Fan’s incessant stage whispering, peppered with giggles and snorts for good measure, rattling on and on. _What the hell did she always find to talk about anyway? What was so funny?_ Questions she asked herself, but would never know the answer to. Every class. Every single one.

The fact that Xue’er’s on-and-off girlfriend that constantly played games with her happened to be a part of the clique that irritated her most wasn’t what had made Lingzi hate them, but it was the perfect icing on the cake- the justification she’d been waiting for. She’d buried the animosity she harboured until she didn’t have to anymore.

The sound of a small, shaky exhale from Xue’er prompted Lingzi to glance towards the spot at the very back row of the classroom where they sat.

Lin Fan and Keran were facing each other, having turned their chairs away from their desks in an earnest display of just how engaged they were with the lesson that was happening. They were playing some kind of game that involved taking turns slapping each other on the thighs. Lovely.

Yuxin was in the furthest corner, her chair tilted against the wall. She appeared slightly more diligent than her friends in that she was at least facing the front of the classroom as Professor Zhang explained his Power-point slides. Still reliably annoying and smug in the way she leaned back just a little too far in her seat, chewing absent-mindedly on the head of her pen.

She noted with derision that Yuxin’s head was turned slightly in their direction. 

She wasn’t. She wasn’t _really_ looking at Xue’er- was she? She couldn’t be.

Yuxin’s expression was gentle. Before she could process it, she was flashing a good-natured half smile in Xue’er’s direction and mouthing to her: _Hey._

From the corner of her eye, Lingzi could make out the sparkly tips of Xue’er’s nails as she wiggled her fingers in a quick wave towards the other girl. And right then, as if she had waited for the optimal timing to piss Lingzi off, Lin Fan let out a choked shrieking sound and grabbed her leg, as she doubled over. Beside her, Keran sat up straight in her seat, smiling innocently.

Maybe three or four people turned briefly to see what was going on; everyone else had desensitized themselves to the random outbursts. Even Professor Zhang only skipped half a beat in his sentence before automatically tuning Lin Fan out and continuing.

Lingzi fumed.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much to everyone who reads this!! This is only the second fan fiction I've ever written but I just love these girls so much that I had to write more of them.  
> I have no idea whether this is something people would be interested in, so any feedback or comments is, of course, welcome.
> 
> Thanks to my lovely friends who beta'd for me, I love and appreciate you all very, very much.


End file.
